


Picture of a Beauty Queen

by wishonadarkstar



Series: Legacies [4]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Coming of Age, Fashion & Couture, Gen, Illegal Enlistment, Light Angst, Secret Identity, unsupervised teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-11 00:02:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15960401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wishonadarkstar/pseuds/wishonadarkstar
Summary: “If there was an assassination attempt, then you would of course bravely dive between me and the blaster fire, and die tragically--”“I don’t really see any upside in this for me,” Poe said.





	Picture of a Beauty Queen

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks again go to saiditallbefore. This is entirely her fault.
> 
> I've been privately calling this my Fashion Designer Ben verse, and I think this fic might even deserve that title.

Ben was draped over the spare bed that had been returned to Poe’s room, idly flipping through a holonovel set during the Clone Wars when Poe came in.

“How was school?” Ben asked politely.

Poe snorted. “It’s not like you actually care, nerf-herder.”

Ben snorted and rolled so he was sitting up. “I’m bored,” he said. “There’s only so much you can read about your carefully-erased-from-history grandmother before you run out of … stuff.”

Poe shrugged. “Can’t help you there, kid.”

“I’m taller than you,” Ben said, pouting. “And I can out-shoot you. And--”

“You’re younger than me,” Poe pointed out. “Therefore, kid. Weren’t you working on that uh, whatchacallit, _fashion portfolio_?”

“If I draw another dress my mother won’t see or outfit I can’t wear because ‘Hosnian Prime is simply too dangerous’, I’ll go crazy,” Ben retorted.

“Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Hosnian Prime _is_ too dangerous. There was another bomb found in the Senate Chambers just a few days ago.”

Ben shrugged that off. “You know what? You could be my body double, like my grandmother had.”

“What would that do?” Poe said. “I mean, assuming we could pull that off, which we can’t, because you’re tall and scrawny and I am neither of those things.”

“Well, if there was an assassination attempt--”

“I think it’s just murder if you don’t hold some sort of office--”

“ _If_ there was an assassination attempt, then you would of course bravely dive between me and the blaster fire, and die tragically--”

“I don’t really see any upside in this for me,” Poe said. “So how about we revisit this, I don’t know, let’s say… _never_?”

Ben threw a pillow at Poe’s head, and Poe ducked it, laughing.

“Come on, surely you figured out some new secret of the Queen of Naboo’s life,” Poe said.

Ben grimaced, because he knew Poe was baiting him-- he was absolutely not going to go for it, but, “She was _far_ more than just the Queen of Naboo, you know,” he snapped, and Poe threw the pillow back, and Ben had to flick it out of the way with the Force.

Poe rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, she may have even fired the first shots of the Clone Wars, she was a great senator, she was a part of the coalition to recall Chancellor Palpatine before he took on the mantle of emperor, she invented hyper travel and the Force and she is a--”

Ben tackled him, and Poe eeled out of the way. Eventually they’d wrestled into a somewhat comfortable position where neither had an advantage, and Poe was grinning and breathless. “Ben, you’re just too damned easy,” he said.

Ben swatted at him, blushing.

Poe sobered up and closed his fingers around Ben’s shoulder tightly. “Ben, I’m joining the Fleet,” he said.

Ben didn’t look at Poe. He’d known pretty much since his mother had sent him over to the Damerons’ place a few days after Han had dropped him off that Poe was on the verge of going out into the galaxy to follow in his parents’ footsteps.

That didn’t stop him from feeling a strange twist of resentment that was almost overwhelming. “Yeah,” Ben said. “I know. Your mom would be happy, I think.”

Poe squeezed Ben’s shoulder again.

“I’ll comm you as often as I can,” Poe swore. “I mean, not that you deserve it since you disappeared from the face of the galaxy for five years without a word, but I’m a better person than you.”

Ben snorted.

Poe snuggled them together tighter, and Ben twisted slightly so he could hug him back.

“You’re going to be the greatest pilot in the Fleet,” Ben said after a few minutes.

“Until you join,” Poe said, and Ben could feel the warmth of his grin through the Force.

“You really think there’s any way my mother would let me join the Fleet?” Ben asked.

Poe laughed. “Then don’t ask her,” he said.

***

If Poe had been _thinking,_ then running into Ben the day he had to muster for transport to the Fleet Academy wouldn’t have surprised him even a little.

He hadn’t been thinking though, so coming face-to-face with Ben’s gawky fifteen-year-old self at the Yavin IV spaceport mere hours after an emotional farewell threw him for a loop.

“Ben Naberrie,” Ben said, offering Poe his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

Poe managed to shake his hand back, and then said, sharply, “Naberrie? Really?”

Ben grinned at him, but he couldn’t say anything else, because more Academy cadets were filing in, and he had to turn and greet them too.

***

_In a lot of ways, Han kidnapping Ben had been a blessing. He was too strong with the Force, said the people who didn’t want to kill her. He’s an easy target, said those who did._

_When Han brought him back with the hopes that he’d be able to pursue his art, Leia had scrambled to figure out what to do with him until the Senatorial Recess was over, and then she did what she had always done: trusted Kes to figure it out._

_She felt badly, of course, right up until they found a live bomb under her seat in the Senate Chambers, and then she just felt relieved._

_At least he was safe, if not happy and fulfilled. Even when he stopped comming her regularly, she didn’t let herself dwell on it further._

***

“Do you really think Senator Amidala would have joined the Fleet only to become the go-to-being for black market supplies?” Poe asked, kicking up his feet.

Ben had somehow managed to get an entire gross of dessert rations and he was marking them all carefully while secreting them throughout their quarters.

Ben glanced up at Poe, and then shrugged. “Actually, I think she may have been something of a pacifist,” he said. “But she would definitely support my creativity.”

“A pacifist? I thought you were firmly convinced she fired the opening shot of the Clone Wars.”

“Well, yeah, but you can want peace and still pick up a weapon and fight for it. Look at General Organa,” he added, smirking slightly.

Their military history class had just finished a section on Organa’s strategies throughout the Galactic Civil War, and Ben had managed to get every point on his paper without having once hit up the Archives.

Poe was still kind of pissed about it-- Ben’d had a good 8 years less formal education than Poe, and some things just plain weren’t fair.

“General Organa is currently making the entire Senate her personal enemy by warmongering,” Poe said.

Ben flicked his fingers dismissively. “She’s been doing that my entire life,” he said. “It doesn’t mean she doesn’t want peace above all else.”

Poe snorted.

The door burst open, and the Commandant of the Academy loomed in the doorway.

Poe groaned.

“Cadet Naberrie!”

***

_Kes had been incredibly apologetic through the entire commcall, but Leia was mostly relieved that Han had taken Ben back after all._

_“He’s better off out there with Han,” she said, and “I thought he’d belong to the whole galaxy, but I’d rather he just belong to himself.”_

_“I don’t think he went with Han, General,” Kes said politely._

_“Where else would he have gone?” Leia asked._

_Kes made a noncommittal noise, and then Leia’s aide interrupted, and she cut off the call with the minimum of courtesies._

***

“I will never understand how you manage to get out of trouble so quickly.”

“It’s a gift,” Ben said. “Dad taught me every trick in the book, you know?”

Ben was carefully nipping in the waist of a human woman’s mess coat, an array of needles stabbed into his pillow.

Even though he was only fourth class and couldn’t attend the end of year formal, Ben had somehow garnered a reputation as the go-to being for getting uniforms altered, and he was doing brisk business in making second and first class cadets look at least reasonably well-dressed for what was, for most of them, the fanciest event of their lives.

Poe had been enlisted to help with measuring and entrusted to baste seams once Ben had chalked them out.

He wasn’t particularly good at it, but Ben was giving him ten percent on commission, and Poe was already thinking about what he’d be doing during the long break after their class released.

A few extra credits never hurt anyone.

***

Kes had been entirely unsurprised when Ben had popped back into his life just a few hours after Poe had. If he’d been a different sort of parent, he’d have been laying bets with Leia and Han over when Poe and Ben would wind up married just because they couldn’t imagine life without each other.

Ben was lounging in Poe’s bedroom when his mother came home.

Leia found him there and smiled at him, tight-lipped and relieved.

She immediately gathered him into a hug, folding him tightly against her despite the fact that he was taller than her and starting to fill out from gawky teenagerhood to proper full-grown size.

“You're here,” she said, and she reached out to tug Poe into the hug with them.

Jealousy spiked in him, _hard_ , but he knew he couldn’t beat Poe’s face in where his mom might see so he forced the emotion down deep where he could deal with it later.

“Yeah,” Ben said. “Where else would I be?”

“With your father,” Leia said. 

Ben raised an eyebrow.

“You know the anniversary of the Galactic Concordance is coming up, I assume?”

Ben rolled his eyes. “Yes?” he suggested, considering that he’d been born at the signing of the Instruments of Surrender, he was hard pressed to forget when that anniversary was.

“The Senate has a gala celebrating that every year, you know. And I was wondering if you’d like something to design. You know I’ve loved everything you showed me before, and I need… I need something distracting.”

Ben bit his lip, thinking about his mother the warmonger, about clothing, and about his grandmother.

“I can do that,” he said slowly.

“And I thought I’d ask, since it should be safe enough-- would you like to accompany me? I haven’t been able to get ahold of your father, and I don’t want to be the only being there without a fawning entourage.”

Her grin showed she was teasing, and Ben rolled his eyes.

“Do I get to have a body double?” he asked, “Just in case?” Poe cracked up, burying his laughter in his hands.

“What?” Leia asked, and Poe burbled out ‘Don’t ask, don’t ask!’ between peals of laughter.

Ben looked between Poe and his mother, and then he said, “Yes, mother, I’d be honored to come.”

Leia grimaced at his formality, and then she hugged them both again.

***

The dress Ben designed for his mother was deliberately meant to look as far from war-like as he could manage.

He incorporated layers and layers of gauzy silks in a variety of pastels, made sure the sleeves were the least practical sleeves for battle he’d ever thought of, and tailored the bodice to fit tightly and stiffly.

No one could fight a battle in the gown he sewed, and he was bitterly pleased by that.

Leia let him dress her the day of the gala, careful with the layers as he tugged folds into place and carefully touched up the fit with a needle and gossamer fine thread.

He had her wear her hair loose, confining only enough in braids to keep her from going completely mad with it in her eyes, and left the cosmetics up to her.

His own outfit was a standard cut of masculine robes in a warm gray with fine white embroidery on the cuffs and collar.

Ben wouldn’t upstage his mother as her companion, not with the precarious balance in the New Republic Senate he knew she had to maintain.

She’d gotten to complaining about her work while he was fitting her and she’d been eager to spend time with him, working on paperwork and drafting legislation in the room he’d set up for sewing in their house on Yavin IV, and he’d absorbed more of her politically precarious position than he thought she’d wanted to let on.

“It’s glorious,” she breathed, twirling once to admire the flow of the skirt.

“Thanks,” Ben said. “It’s based on a sketch I did for someone who ended up getting shot before we could get a deposit on the commission, but I modified it once I saw Grandmother’s outfit in the Nubian Peace Declaration after the end of the Nubian Trade War.”

Leia snorted indelicately. “You gave me a used design?” she asked, teasing warmth filling the air between them. “How very insulting.”

Ben snorted. “Save that for the gala. You’ll probably need it.”

“No,” Leia said. “People will be too distracted asking me who I commissioned this from. I don’t know where I’m going to stash my blaster though,” she added, patting herself down.

Ben brandished an ankle holster, handing it to her and then going to dig for the compact blaster that would fit in it.

When he turned back to her, blaster in hand, she was frowning at him.

“Benny-mine,” she said sadly. “You weren’t supposed to-- this isn’t what--”

Ben swallowed hard. “Mom,” he whispered. “Mom, I don’t care.”

She smiled wanly at him and laid a slim hand on his cheek. “Of course you don’t, son,” she said. “I have to care for the both of us.”

He shook his head, but when her hand slipped away, he caught it and drew it up to kiss her knuckles, all courtly manners that he’d learned more from holos of his grandmother than anything else.

“Let’s go face the New Republic elite, mother,” he said.

Laughing, she took hold of his arm and let him escort her out of the room.

***

The gala was a spectacle in a way he’d never before experienced. He knew some of the people in the room; of course he did. His mother had been living this life, drenched in the seas of galactic politics, since she’d been his age.

Still, even knowing some of the people in the room from when they’d visit her during Senate Recess or even from earlier, when he’d been young and easily distracted with the latest educational hologame, when the death threats and bomb scares and assassination attempts hadn’t been a near-daily occurrence, didn’t change the spectacle of it.

He was announced to the room as Lord Organa, which made his mom _angry_. He could feel the way it boiled around her and chilled the air between them.

“One day,” she murmured, and he wasn’t positive it was meant for him, or if it was even aloud or if it was a particularly intense thought she hadn’t realized he could read. “They will let Alderaan stay dead.”

“Pardon,” she said to the announcer. “His name is Obi-Wan Organa-Solo, no titles.”

The announcer stumbled over an apology, and his confusion wasn’t strong enough to quell the anger of a Skywalker.

Ben hugged himself tightly and Leia glanced at him for a second before the anger was damped entirely.

“Sorry, kid,” she said, squeezing his arm just above the elbow. “Mostly no one else can tell, so I got out of practice. When you were in diapers, Luke taught me how to control it, but…”

She trailed off with a wry smile.

Ben spotted Uncle Lando coming from the far corner of the room and waved, but he could sense in advance that Lando needed him not to hear whatever he wanted to talk to Leia about, so Ben brushed a polite kiss over her cheek and made his way to a refreshment table.

He ended up involved in an intimate conversation with one of the servers, and her cheeks were flushed plum against lavender skin as he flirted with her, and gave her the name of one of his better Core contacts when she mentioned that she was sick of just temporary work.

“Excuse me,” a _very_ familiar voice said behind him, and Ben felt icy dread spike through him.

Ben turned around to face the voice.

“Cadet Naberrie?” the Academy Commandant asked, incredulous.

“Uh--” was all Ben managed to get out before one of Leia’s sycophantic acquaintances was on them.

“You simply _must_ meet Lord Obi-Wan Organa, Commandant! He’s getting almost old enough to pursue secondary education. Certainly someone with such a remarkable history would be a _credit_ to the Fleet, wouldn’t he?”

Ben was frozen in place, his breathing raspy as panic set in.

Panic was bad, he knew— it was the fastest route to that bitter, incandescent fury that sent him breaking walls and other people’s bones and sometimes bigger things.

The glasses on the nearest table started trembling, and then his mother was next to him. 

He was confused: he couldn’t figure out just quite _how_ she’d known to come check on him in that moment.

He reached for her just as a glass shattered on the table, washing the tablecloth with crimson liquor.

Petite and powerful, his mother took his hand in both of hers and glared at both men. “ _Mr._ Obi-Wan Organa-Solo has determined to be an artist when he is of age, so you’ll excuse us if we move on.”

The panic ebbed at her touch and disappeared entirely as soon as she spoke. She used her grip on his hand to drag him away from the near-disaster.

“Benny-mine,” she said once they were tucked into an alcove. “You know no one expects you to follow in my footsteps, or anyone’s, right? All any of us have ever wanted was for you to be yourself, whoever that is.”

“I--”

“No one expects you to join the Fleet,” she said, biting her lip like she wanted to say more.

“Mom,” Ben said, wondering if there would probably be a worse time to admit that he actually already had, sort of. Probably, he decided, and it would be just his luck that that would be when the truth would out. “Did… do people like your dress?” he asked, because he was actually a coward.

“Of course they do!” she said, she smiling at him. “I’ve had people asking for your card all night. Apparently, it was truly inspired. You’ve outdone half the established clothiers in the New Republic, and everyone knows it, kid.”

Ben grinned at her, genuinely pleased, and not just because he’d distracted her from thoughts of the Fleet Academy.

He took a second to straighten her neckline and then he bent to brush a kiss against her cheek. “I know you need to talk to people.”

She held him tightly, and Ben let himself believe for the space of a heartbeat that she would, for once, stay with him instead.

She didn’t.

Several weeks later, Cadet Third Class Ben Naberrie mustered at the spaceport on Yavin IV, and no one but Poe was there to wish him luck.


End file.
